Image via VegaX Holdings
The first thing you’ll notice about Natasha Bansgopaul, is that she is a charmingly direct truth-teller.
“You should know, I will probably be the exception to every rule,” she warns as we begin our interview on her pathway into fintech.
Despite starting her career at a Fortune 500 company as a brand research and brand innovator, Natasha saw an opportunity in emerging financial innovation to use technology to make wealth management more manageable and more accessible for people to enter the space.
“I’ve always felt financial services were daunting. I’ve always felt that I needed to have specialized education to understand finances or even my own finances. In the internet world, that didn’t seem to make much sense.”
Now a Global FinTech leader, Presidential Innovation Fellow, and 2022 digitalundivided X Cosmopolitan The New C-Suite honoree, Natasha is the award-winning founder of VegaX Holdings, a technology platform building cryptocurrency index technology and automated portfolio rebalancing infrastructure solutions for traditional institutions and investors. Read on to hear how this has been sitting at the forefront of fintech and why she believes all women of color need to join the cryptocurrency ride right now.
Image via VegaX Holdings
digitalundivided: What has it been like to build a career in an industry that is developing by the second?
Natasha Bansgopaul: It’s never a dull moment. Building in a new world where you’re responsible for building the nuts, bolts, and bridges is a new experience. In our early days of building fintech before moving into the digital asset business, it was more about how we use APIs, algorithms, and AI technologies to connect things; how do we make things easier? How do we use better processing or protocols to move faster and make things more efficient? A lot of the game was about efficiency to make money. Now, a lot about the game is how we build better things than the old things. And how do we build things to safeguard them for the future, which is daunting when you think about it.
It leads to a world where you constantly learn because new things are always happening. And you have to be learning. You can’t rest on your laurels and get complacent in this space because I nap, and something new has happened.
My business deals with digital currencies, which is 24/7, 365. They won’t turn off. Those kinds of things lead to a relatively complex technological environment. So it’s challenging but also refreshing and exciting that there is an opportunity right now that things are moving fast in finance. It’s a slow-moving industry and slow to change. But the industry can’t afford not to embrace technology and figure out how to incorporate these things into the future.
digitalundivided: The speed at which things pivot in the fintech space is so fast. What kind of resources do you need to make those quick pivots?
Natasha Bansgopaul: Money. We need financial backing. That’s the number one thing. It’s an asset under the management game, especially in this space and in this business. You also need a support network. We also want many things in traditional startup businesses as founders here: funding and visibility with the right people who can open the right door. We’re building for a very traditional old-school white male world that is finance. In this new economy, the hope is that this new world looks a bit different. But we still have to build with those folks. So how do we tap into those networks to partner with people and help move things along, and help people be a part of building the following stages of Web3 for finance?
The other big thing is education in this space. Many people don’t necessarily understand it. It’s still very new. This means it’s a ripe opportunity for people to make a lot of money. That’s why education ends up being essential and needed. It’s about your friend explaining it to you or you being able to explain it to your aunt or grandmother. The way people invest in a traditional space is very personal. But to do that in a new space that is confusing and daunting becomes that much more challenging.
Image via VegaX Holdings
digitalundivided: With all the volatility in this space, industry, and the capital intensity of this space, how do you manage yourself?
Natasha Bansgopaul: That’s a good question. You have become very seasoned at a few things. You become seasoned at managing your emotions externally — both as a person and a founder. You’re wearing many hats. I deal with it by putting things in perspective very quickly. I am a rationalizer — I quickly put things on a scale or a spectrum. Something happening in the market, like Bitcoin dropping to $26,000 right now, seems less important, right? Because I’ve got to scramble to do these things. For myself, I put things on a scale of, is this on fire or not? And if it is on fire, figure out how we address those things. Usually, based on what we’ve been through, the fire scale is pretty extreme. So, it’s usually a world where, ‘is this something that needs to be dealt with now, right this second,’ or can it be dealt with later?’
digitalundivided: What challenges have you witnessed in the ecosystem that you think need to be addressed that we don’t discuss?
Natasha Bansgopaul: We talk about access to funding, but we talk about it incorrectly. Access to funding is a big buzz term that many institutions and programs use. In a world where we are “backing women of color” and “backing fintech women of color” or, this is my favorite, “we’re backing fintech women of color who are building in digital assets,”…and I’m still waiting on that money. And there aren’t that many of us.
There is a misconception about the perception and the reality of funding statements and where these dollars are going. Obviously, with Project Diane, it’s clear in the stats and numbers that we are seeing women of color get funding. But let’s take it to fintech, then let’s take it to digital assets.The funnel continues to get smaller.
There’s a lot of talk about investing in women of color, but there’s not enough walk to back that talk.
digitalundivided: Why is it essential for Latinas and Black women to invest in cryptocurrency right now? What kind of wealth opportunities are available?
Natasha Bansgopaul: This is a very important topic to me. One of the things I’m very passionate about is providing access and opportunities for wealth creation and wealth generation for communities that have been marginalized and not offered opportunities — particularly Black people, women of color, and Black women. That’s kind of my lane.
This is important because this is one of the few unique wealth generation opportunities we have a chance to participate in because we are aware of said wealth opportunity before it has happened. The industry is in its early stages. Part of my gospel that I go around telling people, mainly when I talk to women of color, is that you need to figure out how you enter this industry in some way, shape, or form, whether that means buying $10 worth of bitcoin in by buying $10,000 worth of bitcoin. You have to be in it to win it. You have to pay to play.
What I urge people to do is to get involved in the space and get started. It’s essential to get started now. Now is the time. The early stages are still now. Figuring out how you can be part of this economy and how to be part of it early will only benefit you in the long term. We’re moving to a much more digitized world and a digitized economy supports that digitized world.
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[Editor’s note]: This interview has been lightly edited from its original transcription.